FERDINAND I OF BOURBON, King of the Two Sicilies, IV of Naples, III of Sicily. - Born in Naples on 12 Jan. 1751 to King Charles III, and died there on 4 Jan. 1825. King of Naples in 1759 when his father became king of Spain, he was assisted in government by a regency in which the minister Bernardo Tanucci held preponderance.
He continued with regard to the Holy See that jurisdictionalist policy inaugurated by Charles III which intended to assert sovereign rights before the Church, excluding the previous policy of mutual agreements, and considered the famous presentation of the church as a gracious gift, no longer as a sign of subjection, until in 1788 he denied it altogether. He married Maria Carolina, daughter of the empress Maria Theresa, who, by eliminating Tanucci's influence, succeeded in moving the Kingdom from Spanish policy to Austrian policy and in directing the government ever more along the path of enlightened absolutism, by then rooted in the Habsburg family. Under the pressure of the French invasion in Dec. 1797 F. took refuge in Sicily, whence he returned to Naples in Apr. 1799 with the help of Nelson's English ships and the armed bands of Cardinal Ruffo; he had to take refuge again in Sicily under English protection when Napoleon gave the throne of Naples first in 1806 to his brother Joseph and then to his brother-in-law Joachim Murat.
In 1812, by the imposition of Lord Bentinck, Sicily was granted that Constitution which was to assure the Sicilians the maintenance of insular independence and of the purely personal union of the two Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily; a concession particularly hateful to F. and to the Neapolitans, which had so much influence on the vicissitudes of what was called the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
Having returned to Naples with the Restoration in 1815, F. followed the conservative policy that had its support in Austria and provoked the risings of 1821, which were promptly repressed.
With the Holy See F. improved previous relations and concluded the Concordat of 6 Feb. 1818, which was to be as it were a complement to that of 1741, and regulated teaching, ecclesiastical circumscriptions, endowments and the freedom of acquisition of religious bodies, reserving to the King the right of appointment to bishoprics. Moreover F. was not averse to well-conceived works of government; the first Italian steamship (1818) was launched at Naples; he protected the Universities of Naples and Palermo; he promoted the excavations of Pompeii, founded an astronomical observatory.
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Carmelo Trasselli